


Aurora Borealis

by glass_icarus



Category: Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-01
Updated: 2008-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glass_icarus/pseuds/glass_icarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serafina Pekkala and Marisa Coulter, over the years. Written for slipsthrufingers in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge. [PG]</p><p>A/N: Thanks to L. for the beta!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aurora Borealis

**I. Polaris**

She looks up at the sky and laughs, small fingers grasping for the pretty colors in the sky. "'Rora! 'Rora!" she cries, her daemon flitting about her head in moth-shape, not understanding in her transparent happiness why her father turns away with a cry, nor why her mother's smile shines bright with tears.

(It is winter, and she has run outside without her coat again- a more frequent occurrence than her parents know, for she does not feel the cold.)

"Come inside, Sera, it's time for bed," her mother says, so she obeys, Kaisa settling in her hair like a strange grey flower.

"Will you take me up to the lights one day, mama?" she asks as her mother tucks the quilt beneath her chin.

"Someday when you're older," her mother replies, blowing out the candle on the bedside table.

"Promise?"

"I promise." Her mother's pelican daemon flutters his wings in the doorway, and the door closes upon the low murmur of her parents' voices. The Big Dipper seems to hang low in her bedroom window, the crescent moon so large it could almost be within her reach; but Serafina's eyes are fixed upon the glow of the aurora borealis, which seems to shine with luminous secrets just for her. Breathless, she watches the colors change until sleep tugs at her eyelids with gentle fingers, and when she dreams, she dreams of _north, north_.

(She will wake in the morning to her mother's drawn face, with her father nowhere in sight; her mother will tell her to pack her things for a fantastic journey to the north. On the way, her mother will tell her stories of pine branches and daemons that can fly for miles away from their humans, and of the icy, lovely beauty of the witches and their queens.)

**II. Leo**

This lordling is unlike any of the boys she has met, she thinks as she glances at him from beneath her lashes. Tall, proud, with a lithe figure and a disgustingly robust glow of health, he looks at her with consideration, and not with puling adoration. They have only met a handful of times, but on each occasion, she has had to fight a certain pull. She cannot understand it, the way it affects her, like gravity; she can only struggle against it, for to be beholden to a man is one thing, but to be _bound_ to him is quite another.

"Marisa," he greets her, smiling politely- always politely!

"Asriel," she replies, lifting one eyebrow at the familiarity she has come to expect.

He laughs, and for a moment, she is stunned by the transfiguration of his dark, predatory face. "So crisp, my dear! Have I offended?"

"Certainly not, but if you did, I'm sure I wouldn't know, would I?"

"Touché, touché." They sit for a moment in companionable, if not quite comfortable, silence, until Asriel looks at her again. "Have you thought about it? Going north? The College expeditions sound quite fascinating."

"Chasing Dust, you mean?" She laughs a little, falsely. His eyes flicker once, the sharp gaze of an eagle, a falcon. "It's not a thing the Church would approve of. A heresy, some might call it."

"But think of it, Marisa; think of what it could mean. Other worlds! Universes, perhaps, just beyond our reach!"

"Mysteries I cannot touch, Asriel. You know how I am bound here."

"Then sever your ties, Marisa, and come with me." His voice drops to a whisper. "You have more passion than half of the scholars at Jordan and Oxford together; we both know it. We could accomplish such great things!"

"The world at our feet?" She allows one corner of her mouth to curl upward, bittersweet. "We've discussed this before, I believe. I have obligations here, Asriel; you know I can't afford to alienate the Church. I'm sorry."

"Promise me one thing, then."

"What?"

"Wait for me." She wants to laugh, make some noise of disbelief, but his eyes are steady when they meet hers, and for once they are without masks.

"I can make no such promise," she murmurs; an honest answer. "Look for me when you return, and ask me again."

He smiles humorlessly. "Rest assured, I will. Until next, then." Rising to his feet with feline grace, he calls, "Stelmaria!"

"Until next," she murmurs, as the snow leopard takes her place at Asriel's side. How alike they are, she thinks, even as her own daemon emerges from his unobtrusive hiding place to watch them go. But the twinge in her chest is easily soothed by her daemon's golden tail about her neck, and it is soon forgotten.

**III. Sagittarius**

She flies.

The winds are biting at this altitude, but the renegade queen's daemon is much stronger than she has predicted. Serafina tightens her grip on her pine branch and flattens herself against it to gain speed. She can only hope that Kaisa is faring better at dodging Ulla herself.

They had expected some discontentment, perhaps- some issue taken over the stands of cloud-pine, perhaps, or a request for the discipline of some unruly clan members- but not this madness. Ulla's clan has no quarrel with theirs, but the queen herself has some kind of personal vendetta against a man associated with one of Serafina's clan; or so it appears, for the moment his name was mentioned, Ulla flew into a shrieking rage and could not be dissuaded from her mad pursuit.

Serafina sighs. Men, she has learned early, are like butterflies: beautiful, but transient. This one hardly seems worth the trouble.

The red kite swoops at her from above. Serafina hisses as the sharp talons tear through her shoulder, raises her arm to fend off the next attack: a mistake, she soon discovers, for the air current changes suddenly, and she finds herself falling from a bone-crushing height, with the daemon stooping to follow.

An arrow flies past her cheek, striking the daemon in its chest. Serafina mutters a spell to slow her descent, fingers still clasping the cloud-pine. Alighting more heavily than is her wont, she takes a moment to catch her breath-

And bites back a shriek when she opens her eyes to the limpid golden gaze of a cat daemon. Recoiling in surprise, she falls backward into a pair of steady hands. She looks up, disoriented, into laughing eyes.

"Sorry," she says automatically, as the stranger helps her to her feet. "Thank you," she adds, as her eyes flick to the quiver slung over his shoulder.

"The name's Farder Coram," the man drawls humorously, "and you're quite welcome. Which is lucky, since I believe you've landed on my doorstep." His voice is warm and kind, and looking at him, Serafina cannot help but smile. For once, all thoughts of butterflies are forgotten.

**IV. Ursa Minor**

Iofur Raknison is too easily flattered, Marisa thinks as she returns to the zeppelin. Her disdain for blind adulation has not lessened over the years, and it turns her stomach no less in panserbjorne than it does in humans. It disappoints her, a little. She had thought the bears would be more difficult to manage, but Iofur Raknison has a grasping nature that is all too recognizable from her dealings in society and politics.

If she thinks about it, she cannot imagine how such a one has managed to capture and imprison Asriel, but Asriel is still an uncomfortable subject, even after all these years, and so she does not contemplate it.

She knows that Iofur will try to placate them both for as long as he can, isolating Asriel and keeping his laboratory supplied, but it hardly matters. The experiments at Bolvangar are progressing quite well, and while the scope of their testing is undoubtedly more limited than Asriel's, it is insignificant, for Asriel's projects require test subjects to which he has no access.

For now, her own research into the process of severing is being thoroughly pursued and investigated by the Church, and if Lyra remains frustratingly out of her reach, at least she is also beyond their machinations.

Lyra. There is something about Lyra that teases the back of her mind, but she can't seem to remember...

Marisa shakes off her thoughts, and turns to the pilot. "Back to Bolvangar, if you please. A new shipment is arriving today." She strokes her daemon absently, turning the problem of Dust over in her mind until there is no room left for any lingering unease or regret.

**V. Lyra**

Serafina Pekkala gazes at the sleeping child. So small a person, to take on so large a task! In the pale starlight, she looks as deceptively fragile as her mother is deceptively kind.

Serafina shivers, remembering the knife she slid into her sister's heart. Cold determination and calculating ambition: that is Marisa Coulter. But Lyra's strength of will is equal to her mother's, and her warm heart makes her fiercer than Mrs. Coulter could ever be. Perhaps that is what will allow her to succeed.

Lyra stirs in her sleep, a restless twitch of limbs, her fingers stretching out as if to grasp something. Pantalaimon trembles, tucked close against her neck. The northern lights flicker in the sky above, illuminating their faces with shifting colors.

Serafina brushes a lock of hair back from Lyra's forehead. "I have high hopes for you, mother Eve," she whispers into the wind.

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